Marquinhos dos Santos

A professional football player from Brazil, Marcos Vicente dos Santos plays as an attacking midfielder. Known as Marquinhos, he began his playing career at the Avai Futebol Clube youth academy in 1997. Throughout 1997 and 1998, Marquinhos made his name at the youth team and became a player who was slated to turn professional soon.

In 1999, he broke into the first team at Avai Futebol Clube and over the next two seasons, he played around 37 games and scored 9 goals. His performances were spectacular enough to grab the attention of clubs in Europe and it would be Bayer Leverkusen who would come in to sign Marquinhos in 2000.

Over the next three seasons, Marquinhos would only play 6 times for Leverkusen, spending most of his time with the reserve team squad and making substitute appearances for the first team. In 2002, he moved back to Brazil and signed with Flamengo. Throughout the year, he would only play 10 games, scoring 3 times, and earning a move to Parana Clube in 2003.

A regular at the first team, Marquinhos made his mark with the team, scoring 16 goals in his 41 appearances for the team throughout the season. He moved to Sao Paulo in 2004 but couldn’t recreate the form that made him such a hit at Parana Clube. He just managed to make 7 appearances and score 1 goal before moving to Coritiba in 2005.

Throughout 2005 and 2006, Marquinhos struggled with injury and could not make many appearances for Coritiba in 2005, and Fortaleza in 2006. Towards the second half in 2006, Marquinhos moved to Iraty Esporte Clube and until the early part of 2007, played 14 times and scored 3 goals.

During his time at Iraty, Marquinhos would spend a lot of his time out on loan. His first move would be in 2006, to Avai Futebol Clube before moving to Santa Cruz in 2007 and then to Atletico Mineiro in the latter part of 2007. In 2008, Marquinhos moved to Avai Futebol Clube and became a permanent fixture over the next two seasons, playing almost 100 games and scoring 27 goals.

He moved to Santos in 2010 and after around 47 games, was loaned out to Avai Futebol Clube. Towards the end of 2011, Marquinhos would move to Gremio where he currently fights for a place in the first team.